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Friday, April 17, 2009

I am participating in Park City Girl's Blogger's Quilt Festival, and have had great difficulty choosing my favorite quilt. In the end I decided my favorite quilt is my "Spot On" Circle quilt. I made this quilt back in 2006 when I really had very limited sewing experience. I have largely taught myself to sew and quilt, so I knew this was going to be quite a challenge!

The pattern for this quilt is from the book "Quilts with a Spin" by Becky Goldsmith & Linda Jenkins. The pattern in the book is called "Everyday Best". I love this quilt, and as soon as I saw it in the book, I knew I had to make one. The instructions are really well written and comes with patterns for the arcs, although the arcs do require to be copied onto vellum paper, a major task in itself!

It probably took 18 months to collect enough spotty fabric to start making this quilt.

It is a foundation pieced quilt, with each individual full circle made from 12 arcs, and consisting of 108 pieces of fabric. I made nine full circles, so that is a mere 972 small patches of dotty fabric!

I tackled the making of this quilt one step at a time, not really knowing if I was going to have enough sewing experience to even do the next step. Once the quarter-circle arcs were made, they were joined together - no problem. Then a suitable background fabric had to be chosen. It was at this point that I was introduced to the Color Wheel. The background fabrics are also dotty fabrics, but were chosen to flow in the order of the colors on the color wheel. Adding background fabrics was probably the hardest part and I learned a lot having to sew curves! (I excel at sewing straight lines, however, curves are not a favorite.)

The quilt was professionally machine quilted by Karen Terrens of Quilts on Bastings on a long-arm quilting machine. It is quilted in concentric circles, each arc having two circles of quilting. The background fabrics are also quilted with concentric circles, just slightlyoverlapping with the circle quilting.

This quilt now spends a lot of time in my daughter's room (generally on the floor - she is a typical teenager!). This is the same daughter who exclaimed just last week that I never make a nice quilt for her!

It is such a bright, cheerful quilt, and a tribute to all the dotty fabrics out there!

What an amazing quilt.Way too ambitious for me. I'm also much better with straight lines than curves.Good on you for having a go.The prize is the final product. One of these days your daughter will appreciate what went into creating such an amazing piece.Andi :-)

What a magnificent quilt, and so bright and cheerful! I think it's really great that you would just dive into making it not really knowing if you had the skills, but "knowing" that you could do it. Thanks for sharing!

This quilt has been on my "To-Do" list ever since I first saw the book 3 years ago! I love dots and seeing your completed quilt gives me the motivation I need to dig in to my stash and get started on this project! LOVE IT!

I am in awe that you made this so early on in your quilting life. I love the fact that all the fabrics are polka dots. I didn't realize it until I read the story that goes with it. I know I'm dating myself but all I can say to Spot On is Right On!

OK...you said limited sewing experience???? I would be so afraid to tackle something like that. This is just beautiful...You have inspired me to get myself busy and try and make a quilt....I love yours!

I absolutely LOVE the quilt and never in a lifetime would I get one that big and intricate done, so I also ADMIRE it. You did an excellent job!!!Thanks for visiting my blog and viewing my little *oddity*.Quilting is funbecause it allows so much freedom if only the maker will take it.Just exceptional!

Ok, this is absolutely beautiful! And you are saying making this you were not sure if you have enough sewing experience? This quilt is for me something like the top of the top of sewing excellence. I am very glad I found your blog through festival.

Color, fabrics, piecing - All totally amazing! I noticed your note on the fabric shack - I buy quite a bit from them, too. I even got to stop by their brick and mortor store last month and had a grand time.